Me#1You#10
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 Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:41 pm Post subject: Kesler: Results of 5-Year Study of Vietnam Veterans |
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Bruce Kesler of "Democracy Project" makes note of another engagement in the battle for historical perspective on the Vietnam war and the odious, John Kerry and fellow leftist-inspired myth of the stereotypical "Vietnam Veteran 'Monster'".
Let's hope that Professor Napoli attains his FULL professorship REAL soon...
| Quote: | Results of 5-Year Study of Vietnam Veterans
by Bruce Kesler
Democracy Project
November 10, 2007
"The Vietnam experience; courage, compassion, and pain" is the theme of this beautifully sculpted, lifelike bronze statue by noted artist Eileen Barry.
The Rensselaer County Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, Troy, N.Y.
In 2006, there were 23.9 million veterans in the U.S. One-third of them are Vietnam-era veterans. For much of the past five years, my friend Phil Napoli, Assistant Professor of history at my alma mater, Brooklyn College, has chronicled in their own words the post-Vietnam lives of veterans from New York. His book, New York's Vietnam, is to be published next year by Hill and Wang. It’s appropriate that on this Veterans Day weekend, Professor Napoli convey what he has found, with application to the veterans who have served since the Gulf War.
I'm a 47 year old academic and oral historian at Brooklyn College.
As I have conducted my interviews and talked casually with people about my work, I continue to hear Vietnam veterans referred to as "murderers" and "baby killers" among certain segments of the population, and occasionally find myself having to defend my interest in the stories of Vietnam veterans even in this day and age, 32 years after the official end of the war and 25 years after the creation of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC.
My oral histories trace the impact of the war on the lives of New York residents, past and present. The stories the veterans tell confront the place the war occupies in the lives of New Yorkers; how they remember the war and what it did to them, as well as what they elect to forget. Naturally, my interviews have revealed a wide range of opinions about the war. But the absence of agreement about the war among the people I have interviewed does not preclude me from drawing conclusions on the basis of this testimony. Indeed, I believe that there are important lessons – both historical and political -- to be learned here.
Let me put it simply: These interviews have afforded me the privilege to become acquainted with some of the finest people I have ever met in my life. These men and women are intensely committed to their communities, public-service oriented to an extraordinary degree, and have greater moral integrity than many, many of my peers. That simple fact may have profound implications for our nation.
Now, obviously, to see all Vietnam veterans as heroes is unquestionably false. Of the 2.9 million men who served in-theater during the Vietnam War, some committed crimes and did things they look back upon now with shame. However, the stunning thing for me has been to find that so many of these men and women (despite whatever trouble they might have had earlier in their lives) have found ways to create for themselves, in the language of psychologist Erik Erikson, generative lives. They have struggled through their pain and healed their scars, and done things. In whatever way they have elected to do so, these Vietnam veterans contribute, give back, and make the world around them a better place to live in. Vietnam veterans are an active, important and productive segment of American society.
I am wary of substituting one myth for another; the myth of the crazy Vietnam veteran for the myth of the veteran redeemed. Still, it is impossible to ignore the evidence I have collected. These men and women tell stories of ordinary living; they talk of marriages that fail and marriages that succeed; of raising children who grow up to become exceptionally well educated; of fathers who lose daughters in accidents at summer camp, and yet nevertheless are able to maintain their faith in God and their position within the community. They also talk of establishing chapters of their local veterans groups, of volunteering in public schools, synagogues and churches, of becoming teachers, police officers, firefighters, public servants and more.
These may appear to be small achievements. But they are the chievements of a group of men and women we as a society once looked down upon, sneered at and cast aside. In short they refused the role that our American culture thrust on them, and forged an identity at odds with the media myth. It is my sincere hope that my work will force people to re-think their views on Vietnam veterans.
But beyond the question of status and role of the Vietnam veteran lies what I think is a more important issue. Vietnam-era soldiers are geriatric soldiers. The oldest of them are in their 80s; the youngest in their 50s. In a real sense, their time is past.
Nevertheless we have a new generation of men and women headed home now from a difficult war in a far away place. It, like the Vietnam War, is a war that most Americans don't understand clearly. It, like the Vietnam War, appears endless. Like Vietnam too, there appears no "easy" way out. And I greatly fear that as a result we may be one Abu Ghraib or My Lai away from vilifying this generation of warriors just as was done to the soldiers of the Vietnam era. But I earnestly believe that we as a society can't afford to do to these younger people what was done to the Vietnam veteran 40 years ago and continues to be done today. It is crucial that we be careful about how we treat our newest veterans. For on them, I think, may well rest the future of much that we love about this country; the fact that so many of our neighbors take it upon themselves to act in ways that reveal their selflessness, community mindedness, and a dedication to the common good.
NOTE: On December 14 of this year an exhibition of my oral histories, accompanied by beautiful digital photographs on canvas by photographer Alison Cornyn of Picture-Projects, entitled "In their Own Words: Portraits of Brooklyn's Vietnam Veterans," will open at the Brooklyn Historical Society in downtown Brooklyn. Here’s a Newsday article about the Vietnam veterans oral history project.
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